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This book explores how since colonial times South Africa has created its own vernacular classicism, both in creative media and everyday life.
List of contents
1. The Azanian Muse: classicism in unexpected places Grant Parker; Part I. Conceiving Empire: 2. 'Poetry in pidgin': notes on the persistence of classicism in the architecture of Johannesburg Federico Freschi; 3. Cecil John Rhodes, the classics, and imperialism John Hilton; 4. The 'Mediterranean' Cape: reconstructing an ethos Peter Merrington; Part II. Conceiving the Nation: 5. 'Copy nothing': classical ideals and Afrikaner ideologies at the Voortrekker Monument Elizabeth Rankin and Rolf Michael Schneider; 6. Greeks, Romans, and Volks-education in the Afrikaner Kinderensiklopedie Philip R. Bosman; Part III. Law, Virtue and Truth-Telling: 7. A competing discourse on empire Jonathan Allen; 8. After Cicero: legal thought from antiquity to the New Constitution Deon H. van Zyl; Part IV. Cultures of Collecting: 9. Museum space and displacement: collecting classical antiquities in South Africa Samantha Masters; 10. Antique casts for a colonial gallery: the Beit bequest of classical statuary to Cape Town Anna Tietze; 11. Cecil Rhodes as a reader of the classics: the Groote Schuur collection David Wardle; Part V. Boundary Crossers: 12. 'You are people like these Romans were!': D. D. T. Jabavu of Fort Hare Jo-Marie Claassen; 13. Benjamin Farrington and the science of the swerve John Atkinson; 14. Athens and apartheid: Mary Renault and classics in South Africa Nikolai Endres; 15. Antiquity's undertone: classical resonances in the poetry of Douglas Livingstone Kathleen M. Coleman; Part VI. After Apartheid: 16. Bacchus at Kirstenbosch: reflections of a play director Roy Sargeant; 17. The reception of the Electra myth in Yaël Farber's Molora Elke Steinmeyer; 18. Classical heritage? By the way of an afterword Grant Parker.
About the author
Grant Parker teaches Classics and African Studies at Stanford University, California. His research focuses on Roman imperial culture, classical reception, collective memory, and the history of collecting.
Summary
How have ancient Greece and Rome intersected with South African histories? This book examines architecture, literature, creative arts and historical memory. Far from being the handmaiden of colonialism (and later apartheid), classical antiquity has enabled challenges to the establishment, and shown ways to think about cross-cultural encounters.
